John 8,21-30 – Tuesday of the V Week of Lent
As we approach Holy Week, and therefore the final days of Jesus’ earthly life, the Gospel of John seems to become increasingly difficult to understand for those around him. The conversations become demanding, profound, almost incomprehensible. Jesus seems to speak a different language, far from that of those who listen to him. Nevertheless his is the language of love. And it is paradoxical that this very language is perceived as foreign.
The human heart is made for love, but often struggles to recognize it when it manifests itself in its truest form, that is, in the total gift of self. Jesus, however, he doesn’t give up on telling the truth. With great freedom he states: «When you have raised up the Son of man, then you will know that I Am and do nothing of myself, but as the Father taught me, so I speak. He who sent me is with me: he has not left me alone, because I always do the things that please him.” The “rising” he speaks of is the cross. Apparently it will be the moment of defeat, of abandonment, of the end. In reality it will be the highest moment of the revelation of love. Precisely there, what Jesus himself had taught is fulfilled: “No one has greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
At the moment in which everything seems to collapse, Jesus is actually fully united with the Father. He has never been so faithful, so free, so effective. The cross is not the failure of his mission, but its fulfillment. This Gospel also speaks to our life. It reminds us that moments of weakness, of trial, of apparent defeat are not necessarily useless or sterile. If lived in love, they can become the most fruitful moments. It’s not about seeking suffering, but to learn to go through it in the way of Jesus. We can’t always avoid crosses, but we can choose how to stand on them. We can experience them with anger or with love. And it is precisely love that transforms them. Perhaps the Gospel today invites us to do this: not just try to get off the crosses of life, but learn to remain there with love. Because it is often there that a fruitfulness that we had not foreseen manifests itself.
Tuesday 24 March 2026 – (Tuesday of the V Week of Lent)
